Abundant Rain Makes 2018 Summer Soggy in Sioux Falls

If you think it’s been a wet summer in the Sioux Empire, you would be right. With just over three weeks left in August we are already in the top ten wettest summers on record.

Thanks to a deluge in June and above normal pace in both July and August so far, the meteorological summer rain total is 15.03 inches as of noon on August 7 recorded by the National Weather Service at their observation site at Joe Foss Field. That comes in at number ten on the all-time chart for wettest summer. For the record, number one on the list is a whopping 22.64 inches back in 2010.

Our running total for the current year is 24.45. Since the average moisture for Sioux Falls over the course of the year is 26.38, it is virtually assured that an above normal precipitation total will be achieved.

Does that mean looking ahead that 2018 as a whole will be a record breaker? Looking back at 2010, that year was quite an outlier because that prodigious June through August total helped push the yearly figure to 38.26 inches of rain. With just under five months left in the year it will take a lot of drops and flakes to eclipse that mark.